Scary Stories to Tell the Dead
by I am Best
Summary: A collection of scary, reaper-centric one-shots (1) Dream Records: Grell likes to tell scary stories. Ronald thinks her timing could be a little better. (2) October 11 Falls on a Friday in 2019: Grell likes to be a scary story to others. She doesn't expect to be the victim in her own.
1. Dream Records

Ronald never wanted to be known for being early, and couldn't afford to be late, so walked into the office just as the clock hands ticked to 9:00. The Collections associate was the first desk he came across, and today housed a tall blond with a mass of curls and freckles to share. After he stated his name, she handed him his death ledger all prepped with today's list. Ronald took it with a flourish and wink, then moved on so the reaper who came in behind him could get his assignment. Dispatch was a well-oiled machine, even more so nowadays that William T. Spears was the head manager. That man might be incapable of human emotion, but he knew damn well how to run an agency and keep everyone in line.

Except for Grell, whose only accomplishment to date was no longer being a temp, despite coming in as a senior officer. She was always a wild card, and said wild card was currently bouncing toward Ronald with all the excitement of a kid at Christmas but with far, far more teeth visible than one. Ronald raised a hand in greeting as she slid to a stop just in front of him.

"Senior Sutcliff! Did your clock break? You're actually on time."

"Oh, my sweet summer child," Grell cooed, slinging an arm over Ronald's shoulder and pulling him into a half-hug. "Haven't you seen your list today?"

"If you're excited I assume it's something big and gory." Ronald flipped his book to the current page. They both glanced down. There was just one name for his entire shift, and he had been partnered with Grell for it. "Is this a mistake? It looks like a rookie's list." He was long past this kiddie stuff, taking hours on one soul and having a senior officer holding his hand.

Grell couldn't contain her excitement and spun away to produce her own assignment. She was practically vibrating as she presented the list to him. Same details, only one name for the entire shift.

Ronald tried to recall who they must have pissed off to get such tedious work, but was drawing a blank. He thought that he, at least, had been good. He couldn't say how Grell had been, but she was rarely if ever good. She must have done something and implicated him. Dammit, wasn't the senior supposed to be the one keeping the junior _out_ of trouble?

When comprehension refused to dawn on his face, Grell huffed and yanked back her list. "You're still a rookie in my eyes, Ronnie, but you're my rookie, so I've got to look out for you. Whenever you get this kind of assignment, it can only mean one thing." She glanced around, then dragged him to their shared office, biting her lip so hard on what it meant that blood was beading around the sharp angles of her teeth. Grell licked it away before she whispered, "Coma."

"Coma?" he echoed.

She pulled him down into his seat and perched on the edge of his desk. "Honestly, what are they teaching kids these days? This is - " Grell's hands spun wildly, grasping for the word. "This is a rite of passage! I heard the higher ups talking about it, so had to come in early. You're becoming a true reaper today. Oh, I'm so proud of you, Ronnie!" She leaned down to throw her arms around his shoulders and was lucky neither of them fell over.

He'd never heard of any such rites, not even at the water cooler or when bitching about work at parties. This was probably a rite like 'going toe-to-toe with a demon _and_ a deserter' was a rite - in other words, something Grell and Grell alone considered a profound and important part of the job, so he'd have to steel himself for the unexpected and probably illegal. "I still have no clue what you're talking about."

"Oh, right, right. Silly me," Grell hit herself lightly on the head with her knuckles. "They don't teach these things in class, do they? But what time is it?" Without asking, she checked Ronald's watch. "We really should be there a little early. Let me get ready, and I'll tell you at the hospital."

She danced out to retrieve her scythe, leaving Ronald sitting at his desk and wondering what sort of horrible thing could get Grell out not only on time, but _early_.

* * *

They arrived at the hospital without any trouble, and found the room just as easily. For how Grell was acting, Ronald expected a bit more trouble and a lot more violence, but it really was just a quiet, simple collection.

The curtains were drawn and the door was shut, leaving them in a deep gloom punctuated by the flickering starlight of machinery. The room seemed entirely removed from the rest of the hospital, which was brighter than day and had a constant, droning murmur throughout, even this early in the morning. The only sounds here were the beeping of monitors and the pneumatic hiss of things Ronald didn't even know. Grell was immediately captivated by all the equipment, and Ronald had to clear his throat to catch her attention. If he hadn't seen her in action, he'd have to wonder how someone so scatterbrained could become a senior officer.

"What did you want to tell me?"

"Oh, right. Sit down, Ronnie-kins, and let Auntie Grell tell you a story." She sat herself down on the edge of the woman's bed and patted her shin as though expecting him to sit at her feet. He chose one of the uncomfortable hospital chairs instead.

"Once upon a time, comas were just the things of fairy tales. A princess pricks her finger, or eats a poisoned apple, and falls into a magical, death-like slumber. In real life, if anyone was injured enough to fall comatose, they'd likely fall dead sooner. But science became a thing, and medical science got better and better at keeping people alive, in body if not spirit. Magical slumbers became head trauma or blood clots or a hundred other very unmagical things. People really are so fragile." Grell sighed, eyes distant, fingers twining with the woman's thin, brown hair. Everything about her was washed out, especially compared to the spill of red Grell's own hair provided.

"Anyway, they learned to fight death, claim back those who she'd try to take. That's why that new rule was instated, where we have to wait a full hour before collecting, in case valiant doctors manage to resuscitate the dead. Coming back without a record - it's as bad as having no soul."

Ronald had never questioned the memo announcing that update, though he'd heard all the griping from the Collections division. They still sent out assignments, but for people to die and show up in St Peter's ledger, then disappear from it again was causing havoc on the system. They still hadn't found a long-term solution. "But what does that have to do with," he checked his list. "Emily Jean Roget, who's due to die ten minutes from now?"

"I read she's already died and came back, when she was first admitted. So we don't want her to pull that stunt again. Records look awful when they're yanked around so, and do a number on our scythes. Just imagine what a comatose person's looks like."

"What do they look like?"

"I can't just tell you. Education never ends in the classroom," Grell said almost chidingly. "What do you think comas are?"

"Sleeping?" Ronald asked hesitantly. Grell was far more interested in science and medicine than he was, so she'd know better than him. This whole thing was right up her alley.

"In a way, yes. And what do you do when you sleep?"

He knew that one. "You dream."

"What do you think a person who's been sleeping for - six months, poor girl - dreams about?"

Ronald shrugged. Dreams were just jumbled records. Like all reapers, he no longer had a cinematic record, so he hadn't had a dream since he'd been alive. Sometimes he'd come across flickers of particularly memorable dreams in the records of those he reaped, like they'd been written on twice-over, but they were just another memory to judge.

Grell shrugged, too. "I've never reaped a coma patient before, either. It's something to think about, though."

"Aw, what!" Ronald said just as Emily Jean Roget flat-lined. Grell jumped up from the bed to stand beside Ronald as medical personnel rushed into the room, blinding them as they turned on the lights.

"I thought you'd done this before," he grumbled as Grell watched the clock. They still had an hour. Grell's hand came to rest on his shoulder, warm in its leather glove. She was one of the few reapers Ronald could ever describe as physically warm. Everyone else was cool and spectral, and he sometimes wondered if she spent her free time rubbing her hands together to generate heat.

"I've heard stories, is all. Reaping used to be simple. You lived, you died. Now you live, you die, you might or might not come back, you can do that repeatedly. Doctors can actually intentionally kill you and revive you. You can sleep forever and never experience life. Or with so many people crowding the world, the divine scheme glitches, and you're suddenly living someone else's life." Grell's gaze turned distant again, not really seeing the dead girl before them. Ronald shifted uncomfortable from foot to foot, not sure where Grell's mind had wandered to as she trailed off.

He cleared his throat and tried for flippant as he said, "I don't care about back in your day, geezer. Tell me about the stories."

"Excuse me!" Grell squawked and curled one hand, swiveling to face Ronald and shake her fist in his face. He smiled, relieved to have her back. Grell could go to such dark places, but she was also his mentor and friend. He had to look out for her like she did him. "I'll have you know I am the youngest I'll ever be."

Ronald held up his hands in surrender. "Sorry, sorry. Not a day over a century, yeah?"

"Damn right," Grell said as she flicked her fingers at him, just barely hitting his glasses, and lowered her hand. Ronald knew Grell wouldn't actually hit him as she was far more prone to being hit, but for a moment there he flinched. "Dreams are really interesting. They last only a few minutes or an hour, in starts and stops, but feel like they've gone on for years or seconds. Everything happens in an instance, and an eternity. It's almost like immortality. Time doesn't exist in dreams."

"People don't die when they're dreaming," Ronald said. He remembered at least that much from school. When alive everyone heard some version of 'if you die in your dreams, you die in real life,' and the instructors had to dispel that and many, many other falsehoods in the first year.

"Not usually." Grell nodded at Emily, and Ronald turned to regard her still form behind all the living souls.

"She was dreaming when she died?"

"Maybe. Comas aren't normal like sleep, even we don't really know what happens during them. If it isn't death, researchers don't care." Grell made a very rude, very dismissive sound at the idea. "But I heard this from a friend in Belfast who knew a team who had to reap a coma patient." She leaned in close to whisper and Ronald reflexively did so too, though none of the humans could see or hear them. "He wasn't dead. At least not all of him."

"Huh?"

"The reapers cut into him and records - not a record, records - started spilling out everywhere. All were distinct from each other. Most were still recording. Some were dead and rotted, like they'd ended years ago but nobody had ever collected. There were untold multitudes, and they were all his."

Ronald tried to picture what Grell was describing, coming up with something like a dense forest of streamers. It sounded so _wrong_. Multiple records, like multiple souls? That couldn't be possible. Even those who thought they were several people, and whose souls splintered into separate parts like he'd seen in diagrams, all came from the same root and ended at the same time. Abnormal records wasn't a field he'd ever been particularly interested in, though, so Ronald had little knowledge of what could or couldn't happen. But what little he did know said Grell was wrong.

"You're bullshitting me."

"I am not!" she said indignantly. "They tried to find the man's record, his proper record, and saw lives the man could never have lived rolling by with all the solidity of a real record. One of the reapers mistook a record that was still alive as the one they were looking for. After he - " her voice lowered again. " - after he watched it, he began hacking all the other records to pieces. He was screaming about things in the darkness, things hiding behind the records. He almost killed his partner, and did kill himself."

"Again?" Ronald said immediately. Though it was said like a joke, his voice cracked, ruining the quip. "I mean - other reapers had to have reaped comatose people before. It's not a rare occurrence anymore. If it was so dangerous, people would know."

"I'm just telling it as I heard it, Ronnie. Comas are strange - they might be different every time." Grell shrugged. "I also heard about a person whose record didn't begin. They were dead, and the reaper had no problem getting the record, but when it came time to watching it, the record went backwards forever. Past the person's birth, past the birth of their parents, on and on and on down history, prehistory, before the Earth was formed. It was kept under constant surveillance until it reached the beginning of time. And kept going. Nobody watches it now, but it's still going."

"Stop it, Grell!" Ronald hissed between gritted teeth. He had gooseflesh all up his arms, and he felt like someone was watching them. His gaze flicked around the room, but the bright lights and bustling people left little room for shadows or watchers. Unless they were invisible, like reapers. Or to reapers.

Grell just smiled, her teeth and eyes glinting brightly in the fluorescent lighting. She was _dangerous_ , he reminded himself. Whatever dark thing Emily Jean Roget's soul now housed, Grell could handle it if need be. But she wouldn't shut up. "Even just the ones who were in comas for a few days have weird occurrences. One person's record looped and looped and looped, and they _knew._ In their soul, they knew how they were going to die, because they'd lived their life over and over in their sleep. Everything was identical, except there was a woman who kept getting closer and closer each loop. This woman wore a suit, glasses, and carried a scythe and a ledger. After harvesting the record, the reaper said she knew the future because she'd already lived it, just like the human. Then one day, she just disappeared. Maybe she found a way to break the loop. Or she got caught. But if she _was_ death, what did she see getting closer? "

The room had grown quiet again while they'd been talking, engrossed in the stories. Fifty-six minutes had passed, and only a nurse was there anymore. No family had come to visit her. Ronald didn't know if she had any left. The lights were dimmed again, and Grell's eyes glowed like a cat's, ready to see this soul off to the underworld.

Then she stretched, fingers reaching for the ceiling like nothing was wrong. "If you're in a coma you can't even kill yourself to escape, so we'll never really know what goes on in them. Or maybe those who watched the records found out, and, well. We know what happened to _them_ at least." With that, Grell lapsed into silence and returned her attention to the clock. She wasn't bothered by the implications, but Ronald was. He couldn't stop trying to fill in the blanks yet finding only an amorphous sense of dread instead.

Fifty nine minutes. She nudged Ronald toward the bed when it was clear he wasn't going to move on his own. "Don't worry. I'm right behind you."

He reached back just to be sure, and felt the warm leather of Grell's glove catch his hand. He imagined she was grinning, a look most people found unsettling but Ronald had grown to trust. It offered some comfort.

Everything seemed so much darker than it should be. Damn his scythe and the fact that he had to use it two-handed. With his free hand he checked his list.

Emily Jean Roget. Age: 23. Died March 19, 1948 of cerebral hemorrhaging. She was cute in her picture, eyes wide and chocolate brown, a smile on her face, not knowing that death lay only a few months into her future. Nobody knew their own death, and that was how they were able to smile and enjoy life. Ronald hoped it had been a good one, however short.

The real her was wane and waxy, like a mushroom. Ronald almost jumped back when he saw her eyes were open staring milky and pale up at the ceiling. Had she woken at some point? No, it must have been some sort of muscle spasm. He reflexively glanced up as though to see what her dead eyes saw. Ceiling tiles, nothing more. Of course.

Releasing Grell, Ronald materialized his scythe, balanced his list book on it, and pulled the ripcord. It purred to life, loud in the quiet of the room, and the record of Emily's life unspooled before them. There was only one, and Ronald let out a quiet sigh of relief as he began to watch. It had a beginning. Another relief. It was an unremarkable life, but pleasant, until the car hit her. She'd been aware even as its weight popped bone, skin, organs, as her body oozed out around her. Unnerving, but remarkable only in that she'd survived. The record was perfectly fine, not even suffering that supposed second-death damage Grell spoke of.

It turned abruptly to black, becoming an endless ribbon of nothingness coiling in her body like a snake. He found himself leaning in, actively searching out the monsters who supposedly existed in the dark, in some limbo of needing to see them and fearing that he would. What did the other reapers learn?

Grell's hands came up and slipped under Ronald's glasses to cover his eyes. He jerked against her, breath catching in his throat. Her skin was icy but soft against his eyelids, and while normally Ronald would protest being coddled (and also possibly written up for not doing his job correctly), Grell's stories had seriously unsettled him. He knew she was messing with him still, but if he couldn't see the six months of silence, he couldn't fret over what he might actually see. Ronald wasn't complaining.

It felt like the record unspooled forever, the quiet moth-wing whisper of its movements audible even over the sound of his scythe's engine. They stood in silence until Ronald heard the final flutter of the record. He let out a sigh of relief as Grell stepped back, and he cut the engine. Opening his list, he stamped 'Completed' on Emily's information. No comment. The ink smeared a little, and Ronald realized his hands were shaking.

Grell's own death list closed with a snap, and that brought his attention back to her. He felt like he was underwater, blood rushing in his ears, adrenaline thudding in a heart that no longer beat. Nothing had happened. It was completely normal.

"That wasn't anything like you told me about."

"Aw, were the stories too scary for my widdle junior?" Grell asked. From her expression, Ronald could tell she was trying not to grin. She failed almost immediately. "Like I said, they're just things I heard from other people. Campfire stories for reapers. But you did it! Your first abnormal reaping! You're no longer a rookie, rookie." She clapped, gloves muffling the sound.

Grell's enthusiasm helped bring back some normalcy, and as they left Ronald asked if she wanted to go out for coffee or something. He sort of wanted to hear more of these campfire stories, but in a place with a cozier (safer) atmosphere. Now that it was done, it was obvious they weren't real. Souls were unerringly predictable, but it was fun to imagine what lay beyond or after the glow of records.

"Are you asking me on a date?" she asked with a laugh. "It's nine o'clock, Ronnie. Past bedtime for this old geezer."

"Oh, right. Sweet dreams," Ronald said automatically, though his mind was caught up in the idea that twelve hours had passed since he'd first been assigned the reaping.

Her smile was a little more wane as she said, "I'm sure they will be."

Grell turned on her heel to head toward the apartments, then paused. Ronald was already looking at his watch. The reaper realm was in a constant state of mid-morning, and the only indication it was a different time were the clocks ticking away. Sure enough, it was past nine. They had spent their entire workday with just that one soul. It hadn't seemed nearly that long.

"Do you think Emily's still dreaming?" she asked. If she hadn't said anything, he might not have realized Grell was still there. He looked up.

"What?"

"Nothing. Bye, Ronnie." She waved over her shoulder at him and began to walk away.

Despite the sunlight warming the street, Ronald shivered as he checked his watch again. Still past nine. He recalled what Grell had said. Time doesn't exist in dreams. He watched until the minute hand clicked over once, then resolved to get a watch with a second hand later. One could never have too many watches, telling you that time passes, that it exists and you exist and this isn't a dream.

He almost wished he had seen the record through to the end, to prove to himself they were just stories.

No, he was being stupid. They _were_ just stories. Grell even admitted it. Ronald shook away the thought and decided to get some coffee on his own. His fingers felt unnaturally cold, colder than Grell's had been in the hospital, and a cup of hot coffee should chase away the chill. He just needed to see people living their lives, to steep in the ordinary for a bit.

* * *

A/N: While atm this is complete, if I think up any other stories, I might turn this into a series.


	2. October 11 Falls on a Friday in 2019

October 11 Falls on a Friday in 2019

* * *

Grell was on break, finally, and while one of the reapers' high-traffic porting places wasn't the most ideal locations, currently it was one of the few quiet and solitary places in all of London. Everyone else was out on their shift, or not yet ready to take theirs, leaving her an hour entirely to herself.

She pulled out a bag of crisps and her book, settling into a moth- and time-eaten seat. It creaked dangerously, and Grell glanced around to make sure she actually was alone. She swore to God if it broke and somebody saw, she was going to burn this whole, decrepit building down.

"Sh! Did you hear that?"

Grell froze, then did another check. No, she was still alone. She must've imagined that.

But it was so clear. She warily opened her bag of crisps. Silence. She reached in, the crinkle echoing like a wooden beam about to break.

"I did! There's someone here!"

Grell ate the crisp then stood, book forgotten, to investigate this new problem.

The building was old, she knew, but that was about it. No gruesome history or tragedies. Pipework lay exposed, oozing fluids from cold winters and rainy summers. Generations of spiders had lived and died in its corners and on its stairwells. It moaned and groaned sometimes, especially when the reapers went through en masse, or a storm was raging outside. But it was late at night, and the sky was clear but for that eternal haze of London light.

Grell nearly went through a wall when she turned a corner and saw a group of people. She ducked back behind the corner, rubbing her shoulder where she'd hit, and listened.

"There's definitely something here with us," a woman said breathlessly, pointing at where the thud of Grell's hitting the wall had come from. "They don't want us here."

Grell peeked around the corner after remembering she wasn't actually visible to normal humans. Four people, one with a phone out and held up like it was being used to record, another with what looked like audio recording equipment, the woman who spoke, and a man with a light on his head.

She grinned when she realized who they were, and ate another crisp.

* * *

Grell had been trailing the ghost hunters for about twenty minutes now, all the while occasionally crinkling her bag or tip-toeing away only to run full-speed, heels tick-a-tacking on the exposed wood floor, back toward them.

Her smothered laughter being picked up by their microphones only sweetened the deal.

She stopped long enough for them think they were safe, falling to the back of the little herd and pocketing her now empty crisps bag.

With thirty or so more minutes to burn, Grell zoned out on their excited, fearful chatter to think of more ways to scare them.

"What's this? _Fifty Shades of Grey_?" The man with the light picked up Grell's book and flipped through it. "Hah, even ghosts can have shitty taste"

Grell smacked him in the back of the head. She giggled when he dropped the book to stumble away, a look of abject horror on his face. While he recovered, the woman knelt to pick up the book.

"Spirit!" she said, calling aloud to the house in general and holding the book up like a talisman. Grell sidled over as the cameraman turned to put her in focus. This frizzy-haired woman must be the resident medium. Grell plucked at some of her dense curls, causing her to shake her head as though a bug was buzzing around.

"Spirit, why are you haunting here?"

"Uh. I..." Grell fumbled only a moment. She bounced away and pulled out her lipstick. While she went for the wall, the ghost hunting crew were collectively losing their damn minds.

She stepped back to observe her work. "Ta-da!"

Grell whirled around to see their expression, and her pleasure immediately dissipated. They were gone. Only the phone remained, and Grell picked it up. Turning it around, she blew a kiss into the camera, then stopped the recording.

She glanced back at the wall. It had a very familiar symbol drawn on it, between where she'd torn off strips of wall paper. She considered it a moment, then touched up a few of the thorny points spreading out of the circle like Undertaker's scars. It wasn't that scary, and her lipstick didn't even look like blood. The actual stick looked worse, all mangled after being dragged across warped and crumbling drywall.

While she mused over whether it had been worth it to ruin her lipstick, she heard the frantic pounding of feet a floor below. This haunting had taken a very different turn.

Grell dropped through the floor, bringing the group up sharp with the thud of her landing right in front of them. Her laughter came a moment later, high, cackling, and most importantly mad.

They ran away.

Silence fell.

Laughing more quietly to herself, Grell adjusted her jacket and glanced around. It looked identical to the floor above, though the wear and tear was a little different. She wasn't quite sure where she was. This wasn't exactly the sort of place a lady like her spent her free time exploring.

She looked up to where she'd fallen through. Her book was still up there.

Grell picked a direction to try and find a stairwell.

* * *

The stairwell was tall, narrowly packed, and almost black. The rest of the building at least had windows, but this only had the white spectres of cobwebs and trash. She wrinkled her nose and began the careful, rickety ascent to the next floor.

The door was locked when she got there. Grell leaned into it, felt the warped wood give a little, but couldn't get it open. She stepped back, regarded it, then kicked at the handle. The force left a visible imprint on the door, but it still didn't give. Grell contemplated this unexpected conundrum.

"Oh, yeah. I can ghost!" She knocked herself lightly on the head for forgetting, and leapt through - She hit the door.

Grell fell back, stunned and confused. It took her only a moment to bounce to her feet and beat the door with both hands. What the hell was going on?

"Hello? Is somebody out there?" she called, hoping someone had come through early, but knowing it was a silly hope. No reaper did anything early.

"Are you - are you a person?" a wavering voice answered back.

"Yes!" she said quickly. That didn't sound like anyone she knew, but there were so many new reapers in the department these days. "I can't get through the door."

"What are you doing here?"

"I... was on break," Grell said slowly. That question didn't sound right. "Why are you here?" she asked back.

"I dropped my phone."

Grell looked down at the slight bulge in her jacket pocket. It was the cameraman. "Oh, I have that - Wait, you didn't drop that on this floor." There was no reply. "Phone guy?"

Grell stepped away from the door and began braiding a lock of hair nervously. She didn't believe in ghosts (she told herself this quite fervently, just to make sure it was still true), but what the hell was going on?

* * *

Through trial, error, and a lot of scythe-damage she'd proven every door was locked, barred, and sealed. Every slash healed as soon as she made it, no matter how quickly she worked. Grell grumbled under her breath. She was way past her break time.

She sat down and took out the phone to slid the lock screen. The guy didn't even have a password. It had plenty of battery life left, and bars.

Grell punched in 999. If a death scythe couldn't get her out, maybe a regular old hatchet could get in.

"Hello, emergency service operator. Which service do you require? Fire, police or ambulance?"

"Hello. Um. Fire? I'm stuck in a stairwell."

"What's your name?"

"Grell Sutcliff."

"Okay, Grell. What number are you calling from?"

"I don't know. This isn't my phone."

The operator sighed, a sibilant drag of breath. "Perhaps you shouldn't mess with things outside your understanding."

"I'm sorry, what?" Grell asked. That was an awfully judgemental thing to say.

"I said we'll send someone over, if you can give your location."

Grell pulled the phone away from her ear to regard it warily. At the tinny 'hello?'s, she put it back. "Okay, I'm at -"

The phone went dead, plunging Grell into darkness.

Refusing to be put off by that morbid symbol, Grell turned it back on. Full battery, no bars. The screen offered a haze of faint light, which was more than enough for Grell to see by, not that she had anything worth seeing. She let it go dark again.

As she sat there, chin in hand, not even breathing, Grell began to hear background noises. Humming, mostly, and somewhere far off the heavy turning of old fan-blades. A constant, cool breeze rushed down the stairwell.

"Hey," she said when she could no longer stand the silence. "Are you trying to scare me?"

There was no reply, so Grell stood and yelled. "You have a problem with me? You come and fight me!"

A thud shook the entire stairwell, and Grell instinctively grabbed hold of the metal bannister. She looked down to where the sound had come from, but only saw deeper shadows. Turning on the phone again, she clicked on the flash light app and aimed it downward.

The shadows vanished but for a dark, amorphous shape that lay long across one of the flights. Hands groped at the steps, pulling it up. More hands than normal. Seven, eight. They rose and fell from the mass, some with fingers long enough to look like branches. Something in the mass shifted, and a white mask of a face tilted upward. Two black holes of eyes met Grell, and the mask shifted slightly. It was smiling.

Then it was rushing, itself step by step at a speed that seemed impossible for its size and long, long, _long_ body. Grell stumbled back, heart in her throat.

The light clicked off, leaving her in the darkness. She could hear it at each landing, slamming into the wall before changing course and slithering, tick-tacking, _dragging_ its way up to the next. It hit the one just below her before she quite realized what was happening, and despite the impenetrable gloom, she could still see the thing's face, white as the moon.

Grell ran the other direction, all thoughts of fighting giving way to a primal fear. The sensation of being prey.

Despite how it seemed to have rushed, Grell moved faster, and soon the thing was several landings below her. But that shouldn't have been possible. Where had all these floors come from? The building wasn't this tall, she'd though, and she couldn't see any indication of level anywhere. She only knew where each step was because every flight was identical.

The creature thudded, slithered itself around the corner of each landing and up the next flight. The sounds of pursuit were almost hypnotic, they were so rhythmically consistent. Grell's own steps were an uneven staccato by comparison. Every few landings, when she felt far enough away, she tried the door in the hopes that one would open, before sprinting up to the next because a moment's pause was a moment the thing got closer.

Her stamina wasn't unlimited, and Grell found herself stumbling, slowing. Counting the landings. Twenty... twenty five... thirty...

She sprawled on a landing, barely had time to get to her knees and fling herself at the door. Locked. Grell slumped against it and squeezed her eyes shut, waiting for the creature to grab her. The anticipation alone would do her in. She might be immortal, but Grell knew there were far worse things than death.

It hit the landing below her, clicked like it had a thousand pointy millipede legs as it slid up the steps, those branching arms and fingers tapping. Then, silence. Even the air was still, though she could still hear that distant heartbeat thud of the fan blades.

Grell risked opening her eyes. The mask hovered just at the edge of the final step, like a person crouching, a black arm extended forward. Several fingers were pressed against the tip of her boot, darker than the darkness around them.

She tried to pull her foot back, but the arm shot forward, wrapping around her ankle. It squeezed tight enough to leave unseen bruises. That frozen smile was still in place.

Grell had to force herself to breathe again so she could speak. She was a goddess of death, though she didn't feel like anything but a horror movie victim. She licked her lips. "What - what do you want?"

The thing crawled forward with jerky and spasmodic dying spider movements, and Grell cringed away. The fingers that grabbed her upper arms, legs, cupped her cheek, were like branding irons immobilizing her, and the porcelain of its mask was icy where it pressed against the shell of her ear.

"I like the smell of your fear almost as much as I like the sound of you in pain, Grell Sutcliff," the creature whispered.

Grell's eyes widened, and she almost collided with the mask she twisted so quickly. "Bassy?"

"I never agreed to that name." The mouth didn't move - it really was just a mask, though she was sure it had moved before. Hesitantly, Grell reached up and pulled it off.

Sebastian's teeth were a crescent of white, and those familiar eyes shimmered like oil on blood. That was all Grell could make out, but it was definitely him. His tongue curled out to lick lips Grell couldn't see, and despite knowing who this creature was, she still found herself genuinely afraid. There was no master to hold him back, no Will to intervene at the last second. Even though his far too many limbs around her were burning, she shivered.

"What are you doing here?"

"Someone summoned me. They used a very curious medium." Grell couldn't stop watching the movements of Sebastian's mouth. Though he was saying things that required him to close his lips, his teeth seemed constantly visible.

"Lipstick?" The grin was back, the only answer she needed. This must be how she made others feel. If she were't so scared right now, Grell would be proud of herself for being so creepy. "I'm sorry - I didn't know. I was just scaring some kids. Your symbol was the first thing that came to mind. That kind of cliché Baphomet pentagram stuff. I didn't even think I got it right."

Sebastian's eyes narrowed as she said that, and Grell bit her lip nervously. This wasn't at all like when he was beholden to that kid, and she could probably have worded that better. She just got chatty when she got nervous, and she was very, very nervous now. When she tasted blood, Grell switched to just sucking on the new injury.

"You were close enough. I'm to take it that you don't wish to make a contract with me?"

"No. God, no. Will would kill me." Grell tried to wave her hand dismissively in front of herself, but could only get it to about chest height. Sebastian's musky cinnamon-sharp scent was almost overpowering. It made her think of dense forests and dark nights and things that bent in strange ways crawling through the dirt. "I thought there was a lot more involved to summoning you."

"I come when I want, if I want." Though Grell couldn't see him, or figure out where all his body parts were even if she could, he had a shrug in his voice. "And I wanted to come."

Grell would chew on _that_ later. Right now, she wanted some room. She pulled against his hold on her, but his fingers only tightened. A hand was rifling through her jacket. "Can you stop being a writhing mass of arms and legs?"

"I can, but why would I?" As though to prove his point, an extra arm came up to pet Grell's hair. One on her cheek, two, three, four holding her arms, fifth one in her pocket, a sixth grabbing her ankle. She stopped counting after eleven and shuddered. Grell much preferred her men with a reasonable amount of limbs, and a face she could see.

She tried a different tactic. "May I go now? Please?"

A sudden flash left her blind, and Sebastian lowered the phone from his eye. "No."

Then he was gone - not just letting her go, but completely vanished. She looked around, suddenly able to see. Instead of the stairwell, she was back in the hall, the one where she'd painted the sigil. The wall was gashed and torn beyond repair, holes punched straight through, exposing the studs.

Grell pushed herself unsteadily to her feet. She felt sick. Something was wrong, she just didn't know what.

"I thought demons didn't lie!" she yelled. Then she frowned. Why was she antagonizing him? She'd wanted free, and she was. No harm, no foul, definitely not something to be pursued. Just being in the real world warded away the chill, and that wrongness began to recede.

She nearly stepped on the phone, and knelt to pick it up. It was a newer model, and she could probably pawn it for some cash, especially if she lost pay for this little stunt.

* * *

"Grell, what are you doing here?" Ronald asked as she flopped dramatically into her chair. Though he was now a senior officer right alongside her, neither had bothered to request their own office. They worked well together. Simpatico.

"That's it?" She crossed her arms. Had nobody even noticed she was missing? Or that her collections weren't being collected, at the least?

"Well, um. Yeah? Don't you still have reaping to do?"

"What time is it?"

Ronald pulled his sleeve up to check his watch. "Just past midnight, the eleventh of October. Sunday. 2015," he added, just to be complete. Something in her look must have been making him uneasy. It was just past her break time, just past when she had made the 999 call.

"Oh, shit!" Grell jumped back to her feet. "I had the weirdest experience, and I will tell you about it later. But now I need to get back to work. Dammit."

"Can't wait," Ronald said in a tone that suggested Grell was just being melodramatic. Well, when she told him what happened, she knew he'd be floored.

* * *

A bit sloshy and more than a bit irritated, Grell crawled back to her apartment. Ronald hadn't believed her. They were supposed to be simpatico! Simpatico! Did he think Sebastian - no, the demon, it wasn't really Sebastian any more - did he think a demon wouldn't play like that? Or that Grell accidentally summoning one was too absurd? Why would she even lie about it? Without at least skipping out of work or something?

Stewing to herself she flung her jacket over the arm of the couch. It slid off, pulled down by a weight in her pocket. She looked at the blood red puddle on the floor, as though unable to comprehend it being there. The phone! It would more than corroborate her story.

Ronald would be having none of her barging in, waving a stolen iPhone wildly around tonight, though, so she just tossed it on her night stand as a reminder and got ready for bed.

Once snuggled under the warm and heavy comforter, Grell grabbed it. Sebastian had taken a photo of her, and those damned arms had to be in it too.

She squinted at the lock screen before swiping. Friday, October 11. That... didn't sound right. Hadn't Ronald said it was Sunday?

Grell hoped it wasn't broken. This was all the evidence she had. She swiped and opened the gallery.

There were a lot of black thumbnails. She scrolled. Box after box, pitch black. Some video, others photos. It took an inordinately long time for the black images to give way to the original owner's pictures.

Grell glanced around her dark room as though Se- the demon was lurking just on the periphery, then clicked one of the videos.

* * *

She lay her head down on the cool wood of her desk. Ronald wasn't there, and Grell spent the time alone to soak up the light, the bustle just beyond their office door. She couldn't stop her hands from shaking.

When William flung open her door she yelped and scrambled away, falling off of her chair. Any anger that was in his face gave way to confusion. Grell knew she looked a mess, but she couldn't bring herself to care, even with Will standing right there. She hadn't slept all night, had clicked through the gallery with increasing horror until the battery finally died. The phone was still sitting on her bed.

"Grell? You're supposed to be out collecting."

She peeked over the edge of her desk. "I know... I just... can I do desk work, today, Will?" she finished lamely, not even bothering to get back into her chair.

The door closed, and William circled the desk. "Are you all right?"

Grell pulled her knees to herself and, after a moment's hesitation, shook her head. "No, I'm not."

William knelt down beside her. A gloved hand came to settle awkwardly on her shoulder. He didn't ask what happened. Grell wasn't sure she could answer, if he had.

* * *

A/N:There's an SCP game that I borrowed heavily from for this. 087 maybe?


End file.
